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After years of asking California poultry producers to change their ways, animals rights activists took over part of a Sonoma farm today as "a last resort" to help ailing birds — one the group argues is within its legal rights.

On Saturday, around 120 volunteers and members of the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) moved in to occupy facilities at Petaluma Poultry, a Northern California farm which supplies chicken and turkey products to Amazon and other food retailers. The activists began live-streaming their actions at the farm early in the afternoon, and staged a medical intervention for birds carried out of the farm's housing.

According to the group, which secretly documented some graphic scenarios at the farm in pictures and video, Petaluma Poultry fowl still endure malnutrition, disease, and dangerous over-crowding, despite marketing materials that promote products as low-cruelty and "free range."

The group says its volunteers removed "dozens" of dead or dying birds from farm buildings on Saturday. During activists' livestream of their activities, they asked viewers to call the area's police department and ask them to come to the site and "support the rescuers, and not the abusers."

As of Saturday evening,Direct Action Everywhere's Facebook page and communication director reported that 50 or more activists had been arrested and held pending bail. Members of the group have previously faced arrest and indictment surrounding animal-related demonstrations in California, Utah, and other states.

Based in Sonoma County, Perdue Foods-owned Petaluma Poultry produces two popular brands of chicken that it supplies, among other things, to Amazon and other retailers: Rocky, "The Free Range Chicken," and Rosie, "The Original Organic Chicken."

The company's website establishes that all of the farm's chickens are free range, and says chickens are given "open space to freely move about pecking the ground, taking dust baths, exploring the grass or simply soaking up the sunshine – doing the natural things birds do," as well as provided with "outdoor spaces [at] least half the size of the poultry house ... feed and water both inside and outside of the house, and roosts and other enrichments." On Amazon, Rosie-brand chicken is also described as "free range" by the site.

However, geotagged photos from the farm released by the activists depict a lifestyle for the birds that well differs from what company marketing would suggest. In dozens of photos released by DxE, chickens are shown crowded into one or more large housing "sheds." Some are seemingly ill or injured, and others lie dead among their peers, including in or near communal food trays.

A Rosie-brand Organic Whole Chicken is displayed on Amazon.com, along with product descriptions that... [+] identify the product as free-range. (Screenshot via Amazon)

Screenshot via Amazon

Video secretly captured over a 24-hour period also seems to show the California sun rise and fall over the farm without chickens ever exiting the building where they're housed. Investigators say they saw no evidence (be it feathers or droppings) that chickens were spending any time outside the sheds, either.

According to Wayne Hsiung, co-founder of DxE and a trained attorney, the sheds simply aren't designed to accommodate mass entry and exit by chickens, anyway, which eventually leave by getting loaded into a truck through an attached ramp for subsequent processing as meat.

Hsiung commented by phone that his group has helped lead a four-year effort to get Amazon, Whole Foods, and other large companies to hold their California suppliers accountable to legal animal welfare standards, as well as the standards customers expect.

This effort has included direct calls to companies, various legal tactics, and even conversations with state Senators, all of which hatched no substantial changes or promises to do so, Hsiung said. After a series of "very aggressive" emails from company representatives (and reportedly even one top-level executive), however, he did find out last week that he's being sued personally by Whole Foods, and has long since been banned from the specialty grocery chain.

"Most of us who have been expressing these concerns were Amazon and Whole Foods customers, or still are," Hsiung explained. "I'm still an Amazon consumer, and I would be at Whole Foods, if they let me in their stores."

"This is about the lack of accountability in corporate power, and the rollback of supervision of their practices, which has increased under the Trump Administration," he went on. "Consumers are being pretty much blatantly deceived."

Hsiung also noted that, extreme as their measures may seem to others, the group and its legal advisors believe they're well within their legal rights to take them, at this point.

In a letter delivered to farm operators upon the group's arrival, Priya Sawhney, Lead Investigator for DxE's Open Rescue Network, explained,

We are here to provide aid and care to the sick and injured animals on this property, pursuant to our legal right under California Penal Code Section 597e, and to document violations of California animal cruelty law pursuant to California Penal Code Section 597. Each statute is attached as an exhibit here, as is a legal opinion by Professor Hadar Aviram of UC Hastings School of Law and President of the Western Society of Criminology. Lawyers are present on site to discuss with you the situation.

In California, it is a crime to deny animals necessary sustenance, drink, and shelter or cruelly beat, mutilate, kill, or subject them to other practices causing needless suffering (California Penal Code Section 597) ... Veterinary and legal experts have reviewed our documentation and concluded that our findings do, in fact, constitute a violation of law. Sherstin Rosenberg, a licensed California veterinarian, concluded from our documentation that the practices in question do, in fact, constitute extreme animal cruelty. Attached, you can also see images of animals denied food and water, dead animals among living animals, and animals left dying without treatment at this facility.

Prior to Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods Market for a whopping $13.7 billion last year, both companies had faced their share of public scrutiny over sourcing and supply chain practices. In the year since Amazon's record-breaking acquisition, such scrutiny has only intensified, despite the companies' efforts to both improve public trust and keep many of their business details private.

Last fall, various media outlets drew attention to the fact that Whole Foods-branded chicken was being produced by the same large-scale Perdue operation that produced Perdue's own Harvestland brand, raising questions about what differences — if any — exist between them.

Bloomberg reported last September, "A shopper on a recent visit could pay $2.49 per pound for antibiotic-free thighs with a Whole Foods label touting 'no added solutions or injections.' Perdue’s Harvestland-branded poultry — no antibiotics, air-chilled — cost just $1.99 per pound at an unremarkable Key Food supermarket just a few blocks away. The similarities don’t stop there: In this case, the chicken under the 365 Everyday Value store-brand label at Whole Foods was raised by a Perdue farmer and slaughtered in the same Perdue plant as its Harvestland cousin, although a shopper likely wouldn’t be aware of that fact."

Around the same time, DxE accused Pitman Family Farms, the maker of Mary’s Free Range Chicken and a Whole Foods supplier in six Western states, of breaking its promise to raise birds in free-range environments, based on a four-month investigation by the animal rights group.

Amazon, Whole Foods, Petaluma Poultry, and Perdue Farms have been reached out to for comment, which will be included here when and if available.

Signage is displayed outside an Amazon.com Inc. Go grocery store in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on... [+] Wednesday, March 8, 2017. Amazon's goal is to become a Top 5 grocery retailer by 2025, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Credit: David Ryder/Bloomberg)

I'm a freelance writer covering tech, media, science, and culture. My background includes the areas of writing, editing, and education, and I received Bachelor and Master

…

I'm a freelance writer covering tech, media, science, and culture. My background includes the areas of writing, editing, and education, and I received Bachelor and Master of Arts Degrees from the University of British Columbia and California State University, East Bay, respectively. My work's also been published by mental_floss, AlterNet, Salon, and the Atlantic's CityLab, among others. For more of it, check out my online portfolio at janetburns.contently.com or my cannabis news and culture podcast at patreon.com/TheToke.